Friday, May 16, 2008

In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

The International Indian Treaty Council and the Longest Walk focused on human rights as inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples, as the walkers arrived for prayers at Cahokia Mounds and the St. Louis Arch, the gateway to the west.

For the Longest Walkers on the northern route, it was the gateway to the east, marking the completion of three-fourths of their sacred walk for Mother Earth. Walkers left Alcatraz Island on Feb. 11 and will arrive in Washington D.C. on July 11. Of the 3,600-mile trek, only 860 miles remain.

Speaking during the human rights forum at Southern Illinois University on May 9, Andrea Carmen, executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council, described the evolution of this new era of Indigenous Peoples rights.

Carmen recalled the words of survivors of the Massacre of Wounded Knee, shared by one of the Lakota. The words of the survivor were: "The spirits were waiting for someone to stand up for them, someone to make it right."

Carmen said when the Means brothers, Bill, Ted and Russell Means, took a stand and the American Indian Movement emerged in South Dakota, they took a stand to make things right for those massacred at Wounded Knee.

Then, the International Indian Treaty Council was formed on Standing Rock in 1974 and later gained consultative status at the United Nations.

"It started with the spirits needing someone to stand up for them," Carmen told those gathered at the university Religious Center.

Carmen pointed out that there were four countries of colonizers who voted against the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The first three of those countries have entered into treaties with Indigenous Peoples. However, Australia has already expressed regret for failing to support the Declaration, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 13, 2007.

Carmen pointed out that the Declaration recognizes the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples, inherent rights that can not be given or taken away. Indigenous rights can be violated, she said, but they can not be taken away.

Carmen said the denial of rights causes conflict, but the recognition of rights does not. The passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples did not come without a struggle. There was a hunger strike and a walkout during negotiations before the ultimate passage in 2007.

Indigenous Peoples now have the right to free, prior and informed consent before their lands are contaminated, developed or destroyed.

"Why shouldn't we have a veto on something that will destroy us, kill us and destroy our rights," Carmen said. The Declaration also ensures that Indigenous children have the right to be educated in their own Native language and culture.

Recently, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination told the United States that even though the United States did not vote for passage of the Declaration, the US is bound to abide by the Declaration and use it as the standard to measure whether the U.S. is upholding the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Referring to the Declaration, which ensures the right to self determination, Carmen said, "We have to use it. We have to apply it. This is not the ceiling, this is the floor. Now we have a floor to stand on."

Recently, an attempt to assuage the Native Americans in South Dakota by declaring a public apology was suggested in South Dakota. Quite possibly it also is the time to give a little more of the story of one sordid event that took place and never has been fully told.

On the cold, crisp morning of Dec. 29, 1890, the Sioux Chief Big Foot and some 350 of his followers were camped on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek. Surrounding their camp was a force of U.S. troops charged with the responsibility of arresting Big Foot and disarming his warriors.

In fear of an Indian uprising, the order went out to arrest Chief Sitting Bull at the Standing Rock Reservation. Sitting Bull was killed in the attempt on Dec. 15. Chief Big Foot was next on the list.

When he heard of Sitting Bull's death, Big Foot led his people south to seek protection at the Pine Ridge Reservation. The army intercepted the band on Dec. 28 and brought them to the edge of Wounded Knee to camp. The next morning the chief, wracked with pneumonia and dying, sat among his warriors and powwowed with the army officers. Suddenly the sound of a shot pierced the early morning gloom. Within seconds, the charged atmosphere erupted as Indian scurried to retrieve their discarded rifles and troopers fired volley after volley into the Sioux camp.

The American public's reaction to the battle at the time generally was favorable. Twenty Medals of Honor were awarded for the action. A decade later, when these were reviewed, Gen. Nelson A. Miles called this a "massacre" and not a battle. Native Americans are calling these "medals of dis-Honor."

Historian Will G. Robinson has noted the discrepancy between these 20 medals handed out following the events at Wounded Knee and the fact that only three such Medals of Honor were awarded among the 64,000 South Dakotans who fought for four years of World War II.

By the time it was over, more than 300 men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux lay dead. Twenty-five troopers also died during the massacre, some believed to have been the victims of "friendly fire." Around 150 Lakota are believed to have fled, and an unknown number died of hypothermia.

Now contrast this with a more recent massacre during the Vietnam War. The My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968, with 2nd Lt. William Calley in charge and the mass murder of 347-504 unarmed citizens of the Republic of Vietnam, mostly civilians and the majority of them women and children and conducted by our own U.S. Army.

Eventually, Calley was charged with several counts of premeditated murder in September 1969, and 25 other officers and enlisted men were later charged with related crimes. It was another two months before the American public learned about the massacre and trials. After a 10-month-long trial, in which he claimed that he was following orders from his commanding officer, Calley was convicted, on Sept. 10, 1971, of premeditated murder for ordering the shootings. The trial resulted in a conviction, and on March 31, 1971, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. However on April 1, only a day after Calley was sentenced, President Richard Nixon ordered him released from prison pending appeal. On Aug. 30, 1971, his sentence was reduced to 20 years.

The comparison between these "massacres" is very similar. Both were overwhelmingly strong forces against unarmed civilians. However, in an attempt to rectify the bad feelings about having given these 20 Medals of Honor to soldiers in the Wounded Knee Massacre vs. a conviction for Lt. Calley for basically the same thing, it would seem obvious to have these 20 medals rescinded.

The astrology of 2008 puts us onto the final approach to 2012. Turn on your radar, buckle up, chuck the ginger ale, and drop your landing gear: the Age of Technology is approaching the runway.

The year 2012 has been tossed around as something special since Jose Arguelles created the Harmonic Convergence in 1987. With that event, he called attention to the Mayan Long Count, a calendar of approximately 1.87 million days used by the Maya in what is now Mexico and Guatemala. Something called the 13th baktun ends on December 21, 2012, concluding a 5,125-year cycle. Notably, this cycle predates the Maya, themselves, whose mathematicians dealt in very long spans of time extending before and after their own existence.

More recently, author John Major Jenkins proposed an astronomical theory for why the Mayans chose our particular era for the cycle to end. He suggests that it involves the alignment of the position of the winter solstice Sun with the dark band that runs through the center of the Milky Way galaxy (called the Road to Xibalba).

Due to the precession effect (that is, the very slow wobble of the Earth on its axis), the winter solstice point gets a little earlier every year (advancing a bit more than a degree per century). The same is true for the first day of all the seasons. The precession effect is usually used to measure the astrological/astronomical age. We are familiar with the concept from the Age of Aquarius theme, wherein the Aries Point (the first degree of the Western zodiac or the first day of spring), is moving into the constellation Aquarius.

Jenkins asks a very good question. Maybe it's not the constellation that the Aries Point is in that's the true marker of our cosmic alignment, as we usually think. Maybe it's the point 90 degrees away, where Capricorn begins. Maybe that's where we need to be looking for information about an accurate calculation of the cosmic epoch. Most Planet Waves readers are familiar with the Aries Point and its astonishing connections between personal and global events.

Jenkins proposes that we have one of the cardinal points (the first degrees of the cardinal signs Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn) aligning with something tangible: the dark band running through the Galactic Core. Notably, it is the last of the four points, involving Capricorn—the sign of corporations, government, and the structure of society. All of the 2012 theories, whether friendly, cataclysmic or both (most are not so friendly, by the way), involve changes to the structure of society, whatever else they may touch upon.

This is a cool theory. It helps explain why the Aries Point (which is shorthand for all four of the cardinal points or the four directions) is so hot these days. It actually (in his theory) involves the Capricorn Point aligning with this dark band in the center of the galaxy, which then brings in the Aries Point. When events focus on the Aries Point, we get an idea of why it's so dependably connected to events that ripple through the lives of millions, and which we tend to feel so personally (an example of an Aries Point event was September 11, 2001). Jenkins's theory provides a comprehensible link between Western and Mayan astrology, something that has been lacking throughout this whole discussion. Some astrologers have looked at that 2012 chart and claimed it contains nothing special; hence, 2012 cannot be that important. (Just because someone does not understand a chart does not mean it does not have meaningful information.)

Enter: Pluto in CapricornWhat has not been discussed so widely are outer planet movements leading up to that date. The first of them—and perhaps the most significant—is Pluto entering Capricorn, a process that begins in about two weeks. That is another way of saying that Pluto is aligning with the position of the winter solstice Sun; that is the first degree of Capricorn. This places it on one of the cardinal points, as well as in aspect to the other three.Obviously, Pluto in Capricorn is going to have a profound effect on the structure of society: on all Capricorn institutions, from corporations to the government to the banking system. True, this will affect individuals, but individuals tend to learn faster than groups and companies. We will all go through a series of individual initiations, but the key to some form of success here will be awareness about group initiation.

There are some companies, institutions, and governments that will do very well—the ones that can loosen up their structures, both physical and ideological, and flex with the changes. These will surprise you—when you hear the story of something that seemed stuffy and old suddenly becoming a progressive leader of some kind. Indeed, Pluto in Capricorn is all about leadership. It is about building and acting on the vision that has been developing during the years of Pluto in Sagittarius (1995-present).

Pluto's ingress to Capricorn is attended by some interesting Mars transits. At the time of the ingress in late January, Mars is in a loose (but significant) opposition—in the process of making three exact ones. The third contact is March 7. So we get Mars and Pluto working the solstice points (from Cancer and Capricorn), which feels a little like flint on a piece of iron.

Then, shortly after Pluto ingresses Capricorn to stay (no more retrogrades into Sagittarius), Mars makes an exact conjunction to Pluto around the winter 2008 solstice. So we get a lot of personal fire (of Mars) added to the cosmic and hormonal fire (of Pluto) aspecting the 2012 region of the sky.

Lunar Nodes in the Middle Fixed SignsThe Aries Point usually involves the cardinal signs. But something called Uranian astrology says that 135 degrees away from the cardinal points, we have the middle of the fixed signs. This is the sesquiquadrate aspect, which is described as a trigger aspect. A 45-degree aspect works in a similar way. The lunar nodes are now working their way backwards through Leo and Aquarius. The annular eclipse on February 7, 2008, falls right in the middle of Aquarius, setting off the Aries Point from 45 degrees away in Aquarius.

Saturn in Libra 2009-12Here is an exciting one. Saturn has just entered Virgo, so we're not quite ready to be thinking about Saturn arriving in Libra—but it's not so far away. Saturn arrives there for the first time on Oct. 29, 2009; that is, late next year. A planet entering one of the cardinal signs puts it into direct contact with the Aries Point and the Capricorn solstice point—in this case, directly opposite. Pluto is still in very early Capricorn at that point, which means we have a Saturn-Pluto square aspecting the Aries Point and the Cap solstice point. This will be positively thrilling, all the more so because Saturn is the ruler of Capricorn and has extraordinary power in Libra (it is said to be "exalted" in this sign).

This is a turning point, one that will call attention to the overall theme of the Pluto in Capricorn era. It is a kind of catch-up point. The Saturn-Pluto trine (involving the earthy signs) does not necessarily mean that the two energies are not going to combine in some volatile or provocative ways—trines can be incredibly influential. But the Saturn-Pluto square is a dimension shift, one that will emphasize a major shift in structure of some kind.What we generally fail to recognize when we look at changes in society is that society is all about the relationships that people have with one another. We are good at pretending that our relationships with our coworkers has nothing to do with the relationships between companies or nations, but these things are holographic models of one another. With Saturn in Libra involved, we need to consider how the structure of our personal relationships relates to Capricorn—the structure of society. Marriage, for example, is primarily an economic structure, based in law, not emotions.

Saturn in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn is—among other things—about feeling the connection between our relationships and the structure of society.

The Changes of 2010In 2010, there are three changes that mark a watershed. The first is that Saturn continues its ingress to Libra, retrograding back to Virgo and then making a final ingress in July. This means that the Saturn-Pluto square unfolds throughout this year.

Second, Chiron ingresses Pisces. The last time Chiron ingressed Pisces was on the day past the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, commencing the `60s. Chiron will have spent about six years in Aquarius, a very different energy. Chiron, a potent focus of awareness, will be shifting from the most airy air sign to the most watery water sign—a difference we will be able to feel.

Then for the most interesting change of the year, Uranus begins its ingress to Aries, going right over the Aries Point. Uranus is the planet of revolution, invention, disruption, and forward-thinking. Contact with the Aries Point strongly implies some kind of cultural revolution. In other words, the natives will be getting restless.

The Uranus-Pluto Square of 2012-15All of this is just a warm up, believe it or not. The grand finale is the Uranus-Pluto square of 2012-15. That is to say, Pluto will be in early Capricorn and Uranus will be in early Aries. That is a 90-degree relationship, and by mid-2012, it is exact. Most meetings between the outer planets make three exact contacts over about nine months. Somewhat incredibly, the Uranus-Pluto square beginning in 2012 makes seven exact contacts through 2015—something that I have never seen or heard of before with any outer-planet aspect.

In other words, the two planets will remain in exact square for three years. Based on his story of the history of the Western world, Richard Tarnas in his book, Cosmos and Psyche, has demonstrated that quadrature alignments of Uranus and Pluto—the conjunction, squares and opposition—are times of social upheaval, progress, and even revolution. This is indeed one of the most predictable combinations of planets, and one of the most powerfully focused on actual progress. The `60s, a time of artistic, social, and economic process, is perhaps the best and fortunately most memorable expressions of this aspect. Though there was more to the `60s than this, the alchemy of that time was typical of what happens nearly every time these two planets align.

Based on the historical data he presents in his book, Tarnas gives this aspect a window of action that begins this year. So it is part of that final approach to 2012. Yet based on this highly unusual event of Uranus square Pluto, 2012 itself seems to be a beginning rather than an ending—a time when we will finally see something vaguely equivalent of power to the people.

The only problem is, the people are going to have a reason to revolt. The years immediately ahead of us do not appear to be a time of equity and harmony, but rather a time of corporations and governments consolidating their power, even as they collapse under their own weight.

As many as 200 U.S.-trained Mexican security personnel have defected to drug cartels to carry out killings on both sides of the border and as far north as Dallas, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, told Congress on Wednesday.

The renegade members of Mexico's elite counter-narcotics teams trained at Fort Benning, Ga., have switched sides, contributing to a wave of violence that has claimed some 6,000 victims over the past 30 months, including prominent law enforcement leaders, the Houston-area Republican told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The slaughter has gained urgency amid high-profile assassinations of law officers in Mexico since May 1, claiming six senior officers, five of them with the federal police.

Poe held aloft a dramatic, poster-board-size photograph that he said showed guerrilla-style commandos crossing into the United States.

He said the Department of Homeland Security had documented "over 250 incursions by suspected military forces" into the United States over the past decade.

"I was surprised to hear that the United States has trained Mexican forces and some of those have deserted and become the reason for these attacks," Poe said.

Officers 'switched sides'

The U.S.-trained Mexican security personnel have "switched sides and became assassins and recruiters for the Mexican drug cartels."

Poe, a former prosecutor and criminal court judge, issued the allegations in an unsuccessful effort to persuade the House Foreign Affairs Committee to revamp President Bush's Merida Initiative.

Bush's blueprint calls for $1.4 billion in training, equipment and law enforcement assistance to Mexico and Central America over three years.

Bush also is seeking $500 million in emergency assistance for Mexico this year as part of the supplemental war spending measure.

Evidenced by the acreage figures cited in part one of this multi-part article, the Pentagon does not "need" more land. The army's proposed expansion would give them a total of 2, 577,304 acres (thousand square miles), just at the Piñon Canyon Manuever Site, as shown on the map or this map. The federal government owns more than 5.1 million acres classified as "vacant." U.S. land dedicated to military purposes equals 2.4 percent. U.S. land owned by the federal government, as of September 30, 2004, is 653,299,090.2 acres or 28.8 percent of the country. Most of Nevada, 84.5 percent, is owned by the federal government.

Obviously, land is not the issue. It is however, a huge issue to the ranchers and is fundamental to their livelihood. If their land is seized, ranchers cannot pack up their cows and move elsewhere. Ranchers still become emotional when they reflect on the first and supposedly the last time that the army "took" their property, lands that had belonged to families for generations. Courts have distorted the law, and have become "instrument[s] of plunder," seizing land from the citizens they have pledged to protect. Given these desperate circumstances, "between 2000 and 2004, 19 percent of Colorado farm and ranch deaths were reported as suicides."

The army's Colorado land grab, a scheme to cleanse the area, is merely the tip of the globalist iceberg which concerns, not only ranchers, but the entire middle class. The army, literally acting against American citizens, is not alone but merely the first offense - the patriotism ploy! Others are involved - smug, obedient bureaucrats, environmentalists and tax-exempt foundations.

Investigative Congressional committees attempted to halt the powerful influence exerted by private foundations (4,162 of them in 1951). Foundations have no voters, no clientele, and no investors. They enable the elite to reshape civilization using billions of tax-exempt dollars. Congressman Cox's investigation, starting in 1952, failed as most of the witnesses were "officers and trustees of large foundations" and their associates. Cox unexpectedly fell "gravely ill during the investigation and died before a report could be filed." The Reece Committee, facing obstacle after obstacle, resumed the investigation with Norman Dodd as research director. Almost immediately, instructions from a complicit "White House" to "kill the committee" ended all inquiries.

In June 1998, Ron Arnold, then executive vice-president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise gave congressional testimony that resulted in a detailed report entitled Battered Communities, followed up by a comprehensively-researched book - Undue Influence. Arnold confirmed "Rural communities are suffering unprecedented social and economic losses. All segments of natural resource goods production - water development, farming, ranching, mining, petroleum, timber, fishing, transportation, and manufacturing projects - are being systematically attacked, thwarted, and eradicated. Natural resource production and related jobs are being forced offshore."7

In The Law, Bastiat stated: "Life, faculties, production - in other words, individuality, liberty, property - this is man." "Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property." In addition to land-seizure concerns, ranchers are at the mercy of huge monopolies which control the market and manipulate cattle prices without the expense of owning production. They sometimes finance a few "large feedlot owners who lease ranches and run cattle for them," a way of controlling prices through "captive supply." Independent ranchers, with ever-increasing overhead, get less and less of every retail dollar. Justifiable resistance to this corporatism could result in retaliation and economic ruin, an object lesson to silence other ranchers.

Price fixing and profit manipulation, as John D. Rockefeller discovered, was best achieved by refining and selling oil rather than extracting it from the ground. Skilled carpenters, factory workers, ranchers, farmers, and meatpacking workers labor for decreasing returns while monopoly capitalists, comfortable in luxurious boardrooms, control markets to enhance their personal fortunes without loyalties or consideration for America's economy. Consider construction - individuals cut lumber, assemble fixtures, pour cement, install a roof, paint and together build a house. Who benefits the most? Not the producers - rather the fractional-reserve banker who extorts usury on a paper-only loan.

Since the time of Elizabeth I, British secret services have worked according to the principle of 'the end justifies the means'. Money, bribery, blackmail – these are their recruitment methods...– Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), October 2007

It is not really surprising that historically occultism and espionage have often been strange bedfellows. The black art of espionage is about obtaining secret information and witches, psychics and astrologers have always claimed to be able to predict the future and know about things hidden from ordinary people.

Gathering intelligence is carried out under a cloak of secrecy and occultists are adept at keeping their activities concealed from sight. Like secret agents they also use codes, symbols and cryptograms to hide information from outsiders. Occultists and intelligence officers are similar in many ways, as both inhabit a shadowy underworld of secrets, deception and disinformation. It is therefore not unusual that often these two professions have shared the same members.

The 'father of the British Secret Service' was the Elizabethan lawyer, politician, diplomat and spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham. He was a Protestant and as a young man during the bloody reign of the Catholic Queen Mary was forced to flee abroad to escape persecution. While in exile, Walsingham learnt Italian and French and became acquainted with the work of the famous Venetian Secret Service that used its spying skills for trade and commerce under the cloak of diplomacy.

There is direct evidence that President George W. Bush did not honorably lead this nation, but deliberately misled it into a war he wanted. Bush and his administration knowingly lied to Congress and to the American public — lies that have cost the lives of more than 4,000 young American soldiers and close to $1 trillion.

A Monumental Lie

In his first nationally televised address on the Iraqi crisis on October 7, 2002, six days after receiving the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a classified CIA report, President Bush told millions of Americans the exact opposite of what the CIA was telling him -a monumental lie to the nation and the world.

On the evening of October 7, 2002, the very latest CIA intelligence was that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the U.S. This same information was delivered to the Bush administration as early as October 1, 2002, in the NIE, including input from the CIA and 15 other U.S. intelligence agencies. In addition, CIA director George Tenet briefed Bush in the Oval Office on the morning of October 7th.

According to the October 1, 2002 NIE, "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW [chemical and biological warfare] against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger case for making war." The report concluded that Hussein was not planning to use any weapons of mass destruction; further, Hussein would only use weapons of mass destruction he was believed to have if he were first attacked, that is, he would only use them in self-defense.

Preparing its declassified version of the NIE for Congress, which became known as the White Paper, the Bush administration edited the classified NIE document in ways that significantly changed its inference and meaning, making the threat seem imminent and ominous.

In the original NIE report, members of the U.S. intelligence community vigorously disagreed with the CIA's bloated and inaccurate conclusions. All such opposing commentary was eliminated from the declassified White Paper prepared for Congress and the American people.

The Manning Memo

On January 31, 2003, Bush met in the Oval Office with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In a memo summarizing the meeting discussion, Blair's chief foreign policy advisor David Manning wrote that Bush and Blair expressed their doubts that any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons would ever be found in Iraq, and that there was tension between Bush and Blair over finding some justification for the war that would be acceptable to other nations. Bush was so worried about the failure of the UN inspectors to find hard evidence against Hussein that he talked about three possible ways, Manning wrote, to "provoke a confrontation" with Hussein. One way, Bush said, was to fly "U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, [falsely] painted in UN colors. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach" of UN resolutions and that would justify war. Bush was calculating to create a war, not prevent one.

Denying Blix's Findings

Hans Blix, the United Nation's chief weapons inspector in Iraq, in his March 7, 2003, address to the UN Security Council, said that as of that date, less than 3 weeks before Bush invaded Iraq, that Iraq had capitulated to all demands for professional, no-notice weapons inspections all over Iraq and agreed to increased aerial surveillance by the U.S. over the "no-fly" zones. Iraq had directed the UN inspectors to sites where illicit weapons had been destroyed and had begun to demolish its Al Samoud 2 missiles, as requested by the UN. Blix added that "no evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found" by his inspectors and "no underground facilities for chemical or biological production or storage were found so far." He said that for his inspectors to absolutely confirm that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) "will not take years, nor weeks, but months."

Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief UN nuclear inspector in Iraq and director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the UN Security Council that, "we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq."

The UN inspectors were making substantial progress and Hussein was giving them unlimited access. Why was Bush in such an incredible rush to go to war?

Hussein Disarms, so Bush … Goes to War

When it became clear that the whole purpose of Bush's prewar campaign — to get Hussein to disarm — was being (or already had been) met, Bush and his people came up with a demand they had never once made before — that Hussein resign and leave Iraq. On March 17, 2003, Bush said in a speech to the nation that, "Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict." Military conflict — the lives of thousands of young Americans on the line — because Bush trumped up a new line in the sand?

The Niger Allegation

One of the most notorious instances of the Bush administration using thoroughly discredited information to frighten the American public was the 16 words in Bush's January 28, 2003 State of the Union speech: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The Niger allegation was false, and the Bush administration knew it was false.

Joseph C. Wilson IV, the former ambassador to Iraq, was sent to Niger by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate a supposed memo that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake (a form of lightly processed ore) to Iraq by Niger in the late 1990s. Wilson reported back to the CIA that it was "highly doubtful" such a transaction had ever taken place.

On March 7, 2003, Mohamed ElBaradei told the UN Security Council that "based on thorough analysis" his agency concluded that the "documents which formed the basis for the report of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic." Indeed, author Craig Unger uncovered at least 14 instances prior to the 2003 State of the Union address in which analysts at the CIA, the State Department, or other government agencies that had examined the Niger documents "raised serious doubts about their legitimacy — only to be rebuffed by Bush administration officials who wanted to use them."

On October 5 and 6, 2002, the CIA sent memos to the National Security Council, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and to the White House Situation Room stating that the Niger information was no good.

On January 24, 2003, four days before the president's State of the Union address, the CIA's National Intelligence Council, which oversees all federal agencies that deal with intelligence, sent a memo to the White House stating that "the Niger story is baseless and should be laid to rest."

The 9/11 Lie

The Bush administration put undue pressure on U.S. intelligence agencies to provide it with conclusions that would help them in their quest for war. Bush's former counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, said that on September 12, 2001, one day after 9/11, "The President in a very intimidating way left us — me and my staff — with the clear indication that he wanted us to come back with the word that there was an Iraqi hand behind 9/11."

Bush said on October 7, 2002, "We know that Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy — the United States of America. We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high level contacts that go back a decade," and that "Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses." Of Hussein, he said on November 1, 2002, "We know he's got ties with Al Qaeda."

Even after Bush admitted on September 17, 2003, that he had "no evidence" that Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11, he audaciously continued, in the months and years that followed, to clearly suggest, without stating it outright, that Hussein was involved in 9/11.

On March 20, 2006, Bush said, "I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack on America."

Vincent Bugliosi received his law degree in 1964. In his career at the L.A. County District Attorney's office, he successfully prosecuted 105 out of 106 felony jury trials, including 21 murder convictions without a single loss. His most famous trial, the Charles Manson case, became the basis of his classic, Helter Skelter, the biggest selling true-crime book in publishing history. The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder is available May 27.

The proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has decreased modestly since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.

That puts most Republicans at odds with their standard-bearer, President George W. Bush, and with GOP presidential contender Sen. John McCain. Both men said this week global warming is real and must be addressed.

Republicans are increasingly skeptical that there is solid evidence that the earth has been warming over the past few decades, the survey found. In January 2007, 62 percent said they believed the evidence, compared to 49 percent in the new Pew findings. Pew found that self-described conservative Republicans are more likely than party moderates or liberals to reject the science.

Overall, 71 percent of Americans say there is solid evidence of higher global temperatures, compared with 77 percent at the beginning of last year. Fewer than half in the survey -- 47 percent -- attribute the rising temperatures to human activity.

Age played a role in opinions, Pew said. Fifty-four percent of people under age 30 believe that the earth is warming mostly because of human activity, compared with 37 percent of those ages 65 and older.

Fifty-one percent of college graduates said that human activity is causing global warming, compared to 43 percent of those with a high-school-level education.

Republican leaders this week sided with the scientists.

On Wednesday, the Interior Department declared the polar bear a threatened species, saying it must be protected because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne cited dramatic declines in sea ice over the last three decades and projections of continued losses. These declines, he told a news conference, mean the polar bear is a species likely to be in danger of extinction in the near future.

In demonology, Belphegor (or Beelphegor) is a demon who helps people to make discoveries. He seduces people by suggesting to them ingenious inventions that will make them rich. According to some 16th century demonologists, his power is stronger in April. Bishop and witch-hunterPeter Binsfeld believed that Belphegor tempts by means of laziness.

As a demon, he is described in Kabbalistic writings as the "disputer", an enemy of the sixth Sephiroth "beauty." When summoned, he can grant riches, the power of discovery and ingenious invention. His role as a demon was to sow discord among men and seduce them to evil through the apportionment of wealth.

Belphegor (Lord of the Opening) was pictured in two quite different fashions: as a beautiful naked woman and as a monstrous, bearded demon with an open mouth, horns, and sharply pointed nails. Belphegor also figures in Milton's Paradise Lost and in Victor Hugo's The Toilers of the Sea.

According to legend, Belphegor was sent from Hell by Lucifer to find out if there really was such a thing on earth as married happiness. Rumor of such had reached the demons but they knew that people were not designed to live in harmony. Belphegor's experiences in the world soon convinced him that the rumor was groundless. The story is found in various works of early modern literature, hence the use of the name to apply to a misanthrope or a licentious person.

Also, in Christian tradition, Belphegor is said to be the chief demon of the deadly sin Sloth, at least according to Peter Binsfield's Binsfield's Classification of Demons.

Shown on TV for the first time in 1965, the mystery "Belphégor, ou La fantôme du Louvre" was immediately a great success, becoming a very important landmark in the history of television. This success still lives on, in spite of the forty years of age and the numerous replies, and in spite of the trash TV that lately reigns, undisputed (lately we have witnessed to a revival of the tele-romance, with a lot of remakes and adaptations of famous novels, but from the artistic point of view the results are very poor). This is one of those tele-romances that nostalgically are defined as "oldies"; it's a real pillar of the television language, a movie that made millions of members of the audience hold their breaths. The plot is widely known and takes us to an elegant and mysterious Paris, where, among murders, apparitions and alchemy, we feel the sensation of an obscure supernatural menace, that will dissolve realistically in the end. The interpretation of the exquisitely beautiful Juliette Greco and the kitsch, refined, elegant and nervous atmosphere of Paris, in particular of the magic interiors full of history and mysteries of the Louvre (effective co-protagonist), remain unforgettable. In 2001 a remake has been made, but it is a horror movie, not a mystery. It's a good flick, although naturally worse than the original.

The world goes round and round and human beings say and do the same things again and again, so that it seems there is truly nothing new under the sun. The perplexing unchangingness of man's behavior and the ways of the world have again led me back to the ancient Greeks. And what do I find there? I find the same warmongers and pacifists of today, identical war parties and peace parties, arms industries and anti-war writers, the generals who predictably "just love war," and, as one might expect, the same identical massacre of women and children as everyday in Iraq, now conveniently called "collateral damages." We are used to that military euphemism dating from the Vietnam War. We nearly skip over those terrible words.

Someday collateral damage might be called by its real name: "Crime against humanity."

For this reason I have begun examining Greek classics for confirmation that human beings are not as innovative as we like to think. A recent look at Greek ideas on Power subsequently led me step by step to considerations of how Power in the time of the Greeks of 2500 years ago led inevitably to war, as it does today.

The Trojan Women

Euripides' tragedy of 415 B.C. is considered the greatest anti-war play ever written. That conclusion is truly astounding, considering the number of major wars fought in the world's major civilizations since those times. But, wait! Before going further I should situate this literary work in its proper framework: First of all, it took place in "peacetime", in the aftermath of the fall of Troy to the victorious Athenians. Moreover, centralizing Athens had just brutally sacked the island state of Melos to force it into the Greek Federation, a military action that had shaken the people of Athens itself much as each new slaughter of civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan stuns us today: as was customary in those times all male citizens of Melos were massacred and women and children enslaved. At the same time the peacetime Greeks were preparing an unprovoked war against Sicily (read Iran for today), which in the long run did not work out well at all. Such was the international atmosphere when playwright Euripides staged his protest.

Euripides' tragedy is set in Troy in the period between the fall of the city-state of Troy and the departure of the Greek fleet for home. The same thing had happened there as in Melos: again the innocent civilians suffered most. Oh yes, the Trojan men were slaughtered, or somehow escaped, while the Trojan women were distributed among the victors. But as happens time and time again throughout history, the villains, the hated Athenian Odysseus, pretty Helen over whom the war was fought, and her former husband Menelaus, survived.

The focus in Euripides' masterpiece is on the defeated Trojans. For a change, the warlike Greeks are the bad guys. Men of both sides fought the war and suffered, but, as usual, the defeated suffer the most. Hecuba, the former Trojan queen, goes to Odysseus. The prophetess, Cassandra, Hecuba's daughter, is given to Agamemnon. Andromache, wife of slain Trojan hero, Hector, goes to Achilles' son, Neoptolemos. Helen, wife of Paris, is returned to her former husband, Menelaus. And so fearful were the Athenians of reprisals for their terror that they killed also the infant son of Hector.

First element: the hopelessness of war. One sees the hopeless despair of the women survivors in Troy, their fates as slaves and concubines of the victors. In our times we recall the despondent Mothers of Mayo in Argentina, the Iraqi mothers and wives and daughters, and the wives and mothers of American soldiers killed and maimed in Vietnam and Iraq.

Second element: the inhumanity of war. The lack of compassion on the part of the Greek warriors recalls the same degeneration of humanity as seen in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. So great is the savagery of the Greek victors that even the gods Athena and Poseidon turn on them and destroy many of their ships on the return voyage home.

Third element: the writer's sympathy for the defeated. The tragedy by the Athenian playwright is pro-Trojan which would cause bewilderment in a tongue-tied American anti-war critic of America in Iraq today. One wonders why we today are not capable of the same self-criticism Euripides was 2500 years ago? How many of us take a position and pronounce ourselves pro-Iraq in this war?

The uncomfortable truth is that the world of the Greeks was upside-down. It was ruled by tragedy and ruthlessness and disregard for human lives; war and death and destruction reigned. Yet, all who have read the classics know that its men of culture resisted. The great Greek tragedies—of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus—were committed expressions of cultural freedom, against Power in all its forms. Though the Greeks were a male-dominated, martial society, the writers were the ethical conscience of mankind.

Euripides' message to people and to gods and to all eternity was that war scars the defeated and the victors alike. What remains, he said, is that not even the post-bellum cleansing can remove the stain of blood and guilt. Still today America speaks of undigested Vietnam. We can well wonder how long it is destined to speak of the guilt of Iraq.

Fourth element: the victims of war. Statistics of war dead are always misleading. In Greece, chiefly soldiers died. The women of Troy and Melos were enslaved. In our times, the great majority of dead are instead civilian, the collateral damage: in Vietnam, ninety per cent of the total dead were Vietnamese civilians as opposed to 59,000 American dead and its hundreds of thousands mutilated. In Iraq, probably ninety-nine per cent of the total dead are civilians.

Fifth element: Who profits from war? War profiteers are nothing new and should be recognizable by all of us for what they are. In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, the Chorus, standing at urns filled with the ashes of young men warriors (recalling the body bags and caskets bringing the dead back from Iraq) recite: "For war's a banker, flesh his gold." The makers of swords and spears and helmets and shields of the time censored all talk of peace. Generals. like two-gun General Patton, singing of the "joy of war" and "crazed for sweet human blood" sorrowed at the very mention of the word "peace" … at which ordinary people always rejoice.

At first also the Greek wars seemed glamorous and righteous and heroic … young men off in adventure to see the world. But those wars too ended in the usual slaughter. Men and gods now know that winnerless war always hurts also the innocent and pillages man. Conquerors never conquer completely and the defeated are never defeated completely. Vietnam and Iraq and Cuba and Nicaragua, to name a few, are the proof. But in the attempt, the innocent pay.

Sixth element: the absurdity of war. I offer this little très modern gossipy aside about Helen of Troy to lighten an admittedly heavy read. The Athenians and Trojans allegedly fought their bloody ten-year war over the bigamist and two-faced Helen. Helen or Helena, first Athenian as the wife of Menelaus, then Trojan as wife of Paris, then again back to forgiving Menelaus. Helen, it was said, had great hair, bland manners, a cute little wart between her eyebrows, little mouth, perfect tits. The story goes that when Menelaus erupted into Troy to kill her for her marital betrayal, he only had to take one look at her bared breasts before he dropped his sword.

In her life Helen apparently did little more than display her body … and betray. We do not know what she thought. Apparently she had no virtues. Most certainly she brought disaster to men. She has been defined as "an irresistible sorrow." Perhaps chastised by conscience but still a slave of her passions, she referred to herself as "bitch that I am" and "whore that I am"—which I frankly find redeeming despite critics' criticisms. She must have been capable of self-examination in a way that men warriors were not. Yet, for the Greeks too she was the confirmation of Horace's cutting words that even before Helen "the cunt was the cause of wars." Another story of Helen that I encountered in Thomas Cahill's Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea was that when she found her sister with her throat cut, her mourning consisted of trimming the tips of her beautiful hair … but not too much.

Seventh element: the position of woman. It has been generously suggested that fabled Helen was just a victim of the gods. We might remember that in all her duplicity she was the subject of two Euripides plays: Helen and The Trojan Women. So maybe the words about woman's role in ancient Greece are understandable even though hardly justified. For Greeks, woman was the "opposite", the "other" of man, a non-man, defective, playing a negative role in relation to the male who was the first principle. The male was man by virtue of the exclusion of his opposite. Man and woman, the positive and the negative. Therefore man needed woman to survive. Down through the ages the male has always needed two things in women: the Mother and the cunt. Men admit it. Woman is the nature he wants to suppress but cannot live without: woman, fickle, beautiful, unknowable, mysterious, desirable, necessary.

Eighth element: patriotism. This is the difficult obstacle for modern Americans. We have seen the difficulty of being pro-Iraqi. However, the Athenian Euripides resolved the problem in this way: he was less against his Athens than opposed to all war makers. The purpose of his Trojan Women was apparently an attempt to shock and shake people to their senses as their leaders continued on their warlike path of conquest and the spread of their empire with the sword. The same dilemma goes for America today: in my mind opposition to the Iraqi war, rejection of Washington's Cold War-terrorist bugaboo, convictions of a Washington-organized Twin Towers tragedy, are not unpatriotic principles. On the contrary.

Who in his right senses is not in accord with Euripides who screamed across Athenian stages 2500 years ago the same word pacifists cry today: "Enough!

Over the past several years, the momentum has shifted away from hard-core materialism. The brain seems less like a cold machine. It does not operate like a computer. Instead, meaning, belief and consciousness seem to emerge mysteriously from idiosyncratic networks of neural firings. Those squishy things called emotions play a gigantic role in all forms of thinking. Love is vital to brain development.

Researchers now spend a lot of time trying to understand universal moral intuitions. Genes are not merely selfish, it appears. Instead, people seem to have deep instincts for fairness, empathy and attachment.

Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which orients us in space). The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real.

This new wave of research will not seep into the public realm in the form of militant atheism. Instead it will lead to what you might call neural Buddhism.

If you survey the literature (and I'd recommend books by Newberg, Daniel J. Siegel, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Jonathan Haidt, Antonio Damasio and Marc D. Hauser if you want to get up to speed), you can see that certain beliefs will spread into the wider discussion.

First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is.

In their arguments with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, the faithful have been defending the existence of God. That was the easy debate. The real challenge is going to come from people who feel the existence of the sacred, but who think that particular religions are just cultural artifacts built on top of universal human traits. It's going to come from scientists whose beliefs overlap a bit with Buddhism.

Today capitalism's grave diggers stand poised to shovel with a vengeance. Besides the aforementioned food shortages, sky-rocketing fuel and gasoline prices are finally putting a potentially lethal economic bite on the US American middle class, a group of people who have served as the buffers and unwitting foot-soldiers for the malevolent swine comprising the power elite. (Marxist sociologist C. Wright Mills provided us with masterful analyses of the power elite and the middle class in The Power Elite and White Collar).

War criminals guilty of Nuremberg-class crimes perpetuate a genocide that has resulted in the slaughter of two million Iraqis and the creation of 4 million Iraqi refugees. And that doesn't count the millions of Iraqis who died in Gulf War I and as a result of Clinton's barbaric economic sanctions. Rather than dangling lifelessly from the end of a rope (like the Nazi war criminals and Saddam Hussein), Bush, Cheney, et al continue perpetrating crimes of equal or greater magnitude while holding onto the most powerful positions in the world. Seventy percent of the US population is opposed to this capitalist-driven imperial invasion launched to secure a stranglehold on the rapidly dwindling supply of precious petroleum. Yet instead of getting the withdrawal Democrats promised when they retook Congress, we got a "surge."

In our bourgeois democracy and ostensible "republic," we have the illusion of choice between two supposedly different parties. But, as almost every social and political analyst worth his salt has concluded, ultimately the Republicans and Democrats serve the same class interests. Those of the rich and powerful. The rhetoric (and some of the actions) of the Democrats serve to create a façade of pseudo-humanity which "softens" the appearance of the empathy-deficient sociopaths who conduct US foreign policy in a brutal, murderous fashion and who allow an intolerable degree of economic suffering at home (given the extent of the wealth of this nation). Yes, Derrick Jensen nailed it when he suggested we have a one-party system. Barring a VERY limited number of exceptions, our "elected" officials are members of the Capitalist Party.

Mariela Castro Espín, daughter of President Raúl and director of the National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex), is the greatest advocate of critical awareness and renovation from within the system in Cuba. Her proposals and viewpoints demonstrate it.

[ ... ]

There are many other areas, that have been identified, that require reforms in Cuba. In your view, what changes should be a priority?

For me, the key is to develop mechanisms for participation. That determines and identifies which changes must be made and how. The first thing is that everything has a logical direction. Because sometimes I feel that there are absurd mechanisms that seem to be changing. The most important thing is not to lose sight of the principle objective of socialism: the emancipation of human beings; their well-being with fairness and social justice, and that whatever is done satisfies the growing needs of human beings. It is not that now we want to construct a consumer society, which is the antithesis socialism, but that they produce the goods and services that people need. I also have faith in human betterment, which is why I betting on socialism. Now, I would like there to be fewer prohibitions, as my father said. Less bureaucracy would allow us to generate better levels of satisfaction. And insofar as we develop better mechanisms for participation, the same society is the one that proposes and decides. This was done in the discussion process after my father's speech on July 26: people criticized, analyzed and proposed. This has stayed a permanent mechanism for participation, which seems to me very good, but should not be the only way to do it.

[ ... ]

How do you assess the way the relay of the presidency of the country was done and the role that has been reserved for Fidel?

Fidel is a leader, more than the head, he is a leader. That is a difference, that sometimes is not understood. He has a great moral, historical authority and wisdom. He has authority for being a very brave man, because always he risked his life, without fear of hurricanes, of the dictator, of spies, of any circumstance. Because he always committed himself to improving the lives of his people, although sometimes it was difficult because there was little bread and much to distribute. For Cubans, he is an historical reference and even a cultural and ideological identity. We will always call him comandante [commander].

Often the differences between the two brothers are emphasized and there are some who see resistance from Fidel to the changes driven by Raúl.

I do not know, nor will I ever know. For me it is also a mystery because they are very discreet about what they do.

In general, it is said that they are different and perhaps complementary.

They are very different personalities, but that of being complementary is a cliché. Each one contributes his own self. In my view, Fidel is the one that takes care of strategy, the fundamental objectives, the basic principles that should not change.... And my father, who has also participated in that, cares more attentively to the concrete moments of that strategy; the gears of the mechanism. He has a lot of common sense and teamwork. Because of that, the Army is considered the best organized Ministry. Common sense helps to find practical solutions. Fidel has a more philosophical sense, although many times he also demonstrated a great common sense. But Fidel is all about the great plays in the political arena. In the moments of confrontation or difficulty, seeing him is like seeing a chess master who always will find a brilliant move.

Syrian activists say the international award which imprisoned human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni received last week could boost the morale of rights campaigners in the country but is unlikely to have any impact on the authorities.

Bunni, 48, won the annual Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk on May 1. His wife Raghida Issa accepted the award on his behalf from Irish president Mary McAleese at a ceremony held in Dublin.

Bunni, a father of three, is director of the Centre for Legal Studies in Damascus and one of Syria's most prominent advocates of democratic reform. He has been a human rights activist since the early Nineties, when he began defending political prisoners in court and campaigned against the use of torture in detention.

In April 2007, Bunni was sentenced to five years in prison for spreading false information and joining a banned political group. He had been arrested in May 2006 after signing the "Beirut-Damascus Declaration", which was drafted by Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals and called on Damascus to reform its relations with Beirut.

The award given to Bunni is especially significant as only a handful of Syrian activists have been given such recognition in recent years.

Colleagues of the jailed lawyer said he was pleased to be given the award, as it honoured every activist and every victim of human rights abuses.

Mohammad al-Abdullah, a Syrian human rights activist based in Beirut, said the award was of great value. "It supports activists and helps them to keep on standing up for human rights. They won't feel they are alone in their fight," he said.

"We know the award won't affect the authorities' behaviour on human rights, but it's still an important step and one that is appreciated."

Barack Obama's presidential candidacy does nothing to stop the Black community's pain and suffering at the hands of those conducting genocide under the guise of "public health" and "national security."

This topic should be headlining news internationally, but it's not. The censorship is indicative of the conspiracy of silence that evidences the complicity of the mainstream media's hypocrisy.

The taboo subject is especially relevant to Ron Paul supporters who, unlike Ron Paul, contend the news media has been covering up medical genocide as evidenced in Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola--Nature, Accident or Intentional?, by this author. The book was recommended by Barack Obama's ex-minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, on national television with CNN later canceling a prepared segment on the science of the hepatitis B vaccine transmission of HIV to New York's gay and African Black communities.

Instead of following the good pastor's advice, the mainstream media remains bent on spinning or censoring genocide as though the entire topic is a fake or far-fetched.

Classic grist for this rumor mill is the Washington Post's coverage of National Security Memorandum 46.

Casey Lartigue Jr., an education consultant based in Virginia, and Eliot Morgan, a graduate student in environmental science at Harvard University, wrote this article claiming that "one-third of black American churchgoers believed that AIDS was a form of genocide. One-third also believed that HIV was produced in a germ-warfare lab, and 40 percent of black college students in Washington, D.C., agreed."

Real science teaches that Lartique and Morgan's numbers are under-reported. By 1997, more than 60 percent of urban Blacks believed AIDS to be racially-targeted genocide.

Why would The Washington Post lie?

"The Company" is a mouthpiece for the CIA which takes its multinational corporate direction from globalists in London and Berlin. The Washington Post, and the Associated Press, are among the top Anglo-American news (propaganda) sources in the "free world."

Notice they wrote nothing about National Security Memorandum 200 by Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski's counterpart in the Nixon White House, that equally condemns and concerns colored people as targets for genocidal elimination.

Notice they said nothing about George HW Bush standing before Congress in 1968 urging third world, mostly Black, depopulation to allegedly respond to a "U.S. National Security" crisis.

Notice they did not reveal granddaddy Prescott Bush's heavy investment in eugenics, later named "racial hygiene," advanced by the first family's Nazi collaborators (i.e., Rockefeller-Schmitz Standard Oil/IG Farben industrialists).

Notice they failed to detail COINTELPRO under J. Edgar Hoover that specifically targeted Black leaders and organized activists as further detailed in NSM 46.

An Edinburgh study suggests abolishing the legal age at which children can buy cigarettes would mean fewer take up the habit SCRAPPING the legal age limit for buying cigarettes would reduce dramatically the number of children who smoke, a study has claimed.

A survey of more than 92,000 teenagers in 27 countries has revealed that those living in nations where tobacco sales are not regulated are the least likely to take up the habit.

The study also found that raising the price of tobacco failed to cut the number of child smokers.

According to research by academics at the universities of Edinburgh and Copenhagen, outlawing the sale of cigarettes to minors makes them more desirable because smoking becomes a badge of maturity.

The children who took part in the survey, who were aged 13-15, were asked how frequently they smoked.

Those in countries where there is no age restriction on tobacco sales - such as Belgium, Denmark and France - were much less likely to light up.

The findings, published in the scientific journal Addiction, challenge the notion that restricting the sale of tobacco will encourage people to kick the habit.

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Roots

Revelation 13

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy...

...And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?...

Mark 13

And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.